Morning, Corians! Final Fantasy XIV alpha testing started on April 8th, and Famitsu has their first impressions up and ready for a reading! I’ll be updating this as I get it translated, and our lovely staff will be putting the pictures up in their respective places in the translation. Please enjoy this hands-on account of what we’ve all been waiting for!

Source is Famitsu’s website. The writer is Opone Kikuchi, the same person who answered the interviews in Connect!On.

Final Fantasy XIV Alpha Test Begins
First impressions

The alpha test for FFXIV began on April 8th. (They then go into explaining what a beta test is. If you want me to translate it, let me know –Manly) We have our first impressions of that test here, but keep in mind that these are the impressions of a game under development, and that a lot of this is likely to change in the final version.

Opening

First, you make your character. The five races were present: Hyur, Miqo’te, Lalafell, Elezen, and Roegadyn. All races except Miqo’te were selectable.

You can select things like your facial pattern, height, and voice. Your starting equipment is decided by the class you choose. You can select what city you start in, but in the alpha test, you can only choose Limsa Lominsa, so we did. You also select your birthday and guardian deity.

(LA-LA-FE-LOOOOOO -Manly)

After creating a character, you are presented with an opening movie and are taught how to battle through a tutorial. In battle, when you target an enemy and unsheathe your weapon, you are presented with the action list. You select the move you want to use from the list, and when your gauge fills the move is activated. Timing affects the power and accuracy of the move.

There’s also “battle regimens,” in which you select a number of moves to be used in succession. The order in which the moves are used can change the effect of the attack, so trying out different battle regimens to find the most effective ones looks like a lot of fun.

After the battle, the cut scene continues and you arrive in Limsa Lominsa shortly after. There are a lot of quests and cut scenes related to the story, so you really get sucked into it.

Guildleves

FFXIV’s quests are called “levequests.” You can receive rewards by killing a certain number of creatures or gathering a certain number of items. I tried out one of the battle-based levequests, first. You get a levequest from the counter and head to the Aetherite mentioned in the leve. Aside from being the starting points for levequests, Aetherite also restores HP and MP and serves as a return point for when you die.

There are five levels of difficulty for guildleves. I went solo this time so I selected a lower difficulty because it appears that the strength of the monsters changes with the difficulty level, but I’m sure getting a party together and going after stronger monsters will be fun. After defeating the monsters, I got my reward and returned to the Aetherite I started from by using the “Aetherite node” that appeared after I finished the quest. I was thankful for that little addition.

Rich character development

In FFXIV, you get a “physical bonus” after raising enough experience points. You put this bonus into your different stats to develop your character. Besides the usual strength, vitality, dexterity, agility, intelligence, wisdom (mind), charisma, and luck, you can also put them into HP and MP. You can also use your physical bonus to strengthen your elemental properties.

There are also training points. By accumulating these points, your skill rank goes up and you can learn new moves. Sometimes I learned a new move while playing and didn’t even realize it. You gain training points by doing things related to those jobs, like battle for disciplines of war and crafting for disciplines of hand. These new moves can be used by placing them on your action list. With all the customization with training points and physical bonus, I really felt that creating your own character is a deep and rich experience with many possibilities.

A rich MMORPG even casual gamers can enjoy

I wanted to bring you this information as quickly as I could, so this was just a brief introduction, but how did you like it? Even though this is still just the alpha test, the PCs and NPCs gestures and movements are so lovingly crafted, Eorzea really feels alive. This is a title that not only MMORPG veterans, but people who have never touched an MMORPG can enjoy. It’s still possible to sign up for beta testing from the main site, and they will continue to add new testers, so go sign up if you’re interested!

We will also publish an alpha test report in our magazine, so please have a look at that, too.

(And when I get a hold of that article, you can bet we’ll have it here at the Core, as well! –Manly)

That’s all for this article, but we have more information to come today! It may have been a little slow getting in, but we’re all working very hard and are dedicated to getting it to you. Thanks for your patience and understanding!